Guillaume CoustouBiography of French Baroque Sculptor, Best-known
for The Marly Horse.

Horse Restrained by a Groom
"The Marly Horse" (1739-45)
Marble Statue, Louvre, Paris.
One of the greatest sculptures
of the French Baroque.

Guillaume Coustou I (1677-1746)

A member of a French dynasty of sculptors
headed by the woodcarver Francois Coustou (d.1690), and the brother-in-law
of the Baroque sculptor Antoine
Coysevox (1640-1720), Guillaume Coustou studied at the French
Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and also in Rome, before returning
to France where his exceptional talents were employed by King Louis XIV.

A highly talented figure in Baroque
sculpture, Guillaume Coustou is best known for his two pieces of marble
sculpture, each called Horse restrained by a Groom (1739-45,
Louvre Museum, Paris), known jointly as the Marly Horses. Originally
created for the royal chateau at Marly, then relocated to the Place de
la Concorde before settling finally at the Louvre, these powerful statues
exude equestrian elegance and power. They are among the most enduring
images of energetic Baroque art
of the early eighteenth century.

EVOLUTION OF SCULPTURE
For details of the origins and
development of the plastic arts
see: History of Sculpture.

BEST SCULPTORS
For a list of the world's most
talented 3-D artists, see:Greatest Sculptors.

Biography

Nicolas Coustou (1658-1733), Guillaume's
elder brother, was also a sculptor and it was he who blazed a trail for
his younger sibling. In 1676 Nicolas went to Paris in 1676 to under his
uncle, Antoine Coysevox, President of the recently-established French
Academy of Painting and Sculpture. In 1682, he gained the Prix de Rome,
which entitled him to four years education at the French Academy of Rome.
On his return to France Nicolas became a full member of the Academy where
he led a highly successful academic career (one of his pupils was the
famous artist Louis-Francois Roubiliac
(1695-1762), becoming Professor of Sculpture, later Rector and finally
Chancellor. An artist of remarkable ability, he was - despite the influence
of earlier virtuosi like Michelangelo
(1475-1564) and Alessandro Algardi
(1598-1654) - a perfect exemplar of French Baroque sculpture.

Fall and Rise

Better than his brother - in fact one of
the great French
Baroque artists, Guillaume Coustou also won the Prix de
Rome (Colbert prize) (in 1697), and also went to study in the Italian
capital, but fell out with the Academy authorities and quit. He was only
rescued from a life of homelessness by the French sculptor Pierre Legros
II (1666-1719), who befriended him and helped him with further study,
notably of Bernini's works.

Returning to Paris about 1700, he helped
Coysevox in the completion of his two monumental equestrian
statues of Fame and Mercury, designed for the park at
the chateau of Marly. In 1704 he was, like his elder brother, elected
a member of the French Academy, presenting his marble statuette of Hercules
on the Funeral Pyre (1703, Louvre), a work that clearly demonstrates
his virtuosity in stone sculpture and dynamic
composition. Like his brother Nicolas, Guillaume enjoyed a successful
career within the Academy, becoming Professor of Sculpture and later Rector.

The Marly Horses

Also employed by French King Louis XIV,
Guillaume Coustou's greatest works are the two marble horses with grooms
("The Marly Horses"). Reinterpreting the theme of the colossal
Horse Tamers in the Piazza Quirinale in Rome, each of these classic
Baroque sculptures consists of a rider trying to tame a wild horse, allowing
us to marvel at Coustou's portrayal of spirited impetuosity and tangible
realism. Designed initially for the Terrace de l'Abreuvoir (horse
trough) at the King's chateau at Marly, to replace Coysevox's Mercury
and Fame sculptures, which had been relocated to the Tuileries
Gardens in 1719, these beautiful equestrian works were transferred in
1794 to the Place de la Concorde at the entrance to the Champs Elysees,
where they have stood ever since, although they have been replaced by
copies while the originals have been moved to the Louvre.

Other works by Coustou include the colossal
groups The Ocean and The Mediterranean, for the park at
Marly; also for Marly, Daphne chased by Apollo (1714, Louvre),
a collaboration with his brother Nicolas; the bronze
sculptureRhone, which formed part of the statue of King Louis
XIV at Lyons; and in Paris, the relief sculpture
depicting Louis XIV mounted and accompanied by Justice and Prudence
and the bronze figures of Mars and Minerva (1733-34), at
the entrance of the Hotel des Invalides.

Other notable figurative sculptures by
Guillaume Coustou include: the running figure of Hippomenes, positioned
in the middle of one of the carp pools at Marly; a pair of life-size marble
sculptures of King Louis XV as Jupiter and Marie Leszczynska
as Juno for the chateau de Petit-Bourg, next to Versailles; a bronze
statue of Diana and a Hind, for the Tuileries
Gardens in Paris, and a marble Bust of Samuel Bernard (1735, Metropolitan
Museum of Art).

Guillaume Coustou I was survived by two
sons, both of whom were artists. Guillaume Coustou II (1716-1777)
became a sculptor and was noted for works like the marble Apotheosis
of St Francis Xavier (1743, Bordeaux, Church of St Paul), Apollo
(1753, château de Bellevue), Mars and Venus (1769, Schloss
Sanssouci, Potsdam) and others. The younger Charles Pierre Coustou
(1721-97) was active as an architect.

 For the history and types of sculpture,
see: Homepage.
 For the evolution and development of the visual arts, see: History
of Art.